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Want to upgrade
I am currently running a Dual 2.66GHz Dual-Core Mac Pro Desktop, with 2GB DDR SDRAM. I am moving a lot more into the After Effects world and my machine is not enjoying it. I do alot of green screen keying, and broadcast type graphics for a corporate video company. I have been givin the go ahead to start finding some upgrades, but I don’t really know where to start. I know I need more RAM, but how much? I have been told that getting a better Graphics Card would help, but I don’t quit understand what to look for when shopping for one. If anyone can give me a few pointers, that would be great. I am hoping to get the machine going fast enough so i don’t have to wait every time i change something. And once i have any decent effects or 5 or more layers, things start to slow down dramatically. Thanks.
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1 Reply
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One of the major reasons you’re experiencing slower than desired performance is that you’re running AE7 on an Intel Mac. AE7 is not Intel-native on the Mac and must run through Rosetta which is fine for most uses, but can severely impact performance on high-end apps.
The best upgrade you can get for yourself is AE CS3, which is not available yet (I hear a beta will be posted at labs.adobe.com on April 16th). CS3 will be a Universal Binary and run natively on your Mac Pro, that should provide a bigger performance boost than literally any other upgrade you can make right now.
After that I would recommend more RAM, CS3 is supposed to be aware of multiple cores and will be able to take advantage of much more RAM than AE7 (which can only make use of 3GB). Right now 4GB is about right for After Effects, after CS3 you might consider going all the way up to 8GB (or more if you have cash to blow).
[Colby_Bclip] “I have been told that getting a better Graphics Card would hel”
I don’t know who told you that, but a graphics card really won’t help you very much with After Effects. The only time AE uses hardware accelerated graphics is for OpenGL previews and renders (which can give much different results than a final render), I personally never even use these. I don’t know what kind of enhanced OpenGL support might be included in CS3 though.
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